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| Baalaambaal maami (08-20-1931 to 12-12-12) |
She was a conservative, extremely disciplined person yet a forward thinking personality, always full of modern thoughts - that is she could accept and appreciate the change and understand people. She was strict but flexible. She started her day with a bath in the cold water, visit to the temple in the agraharam, never skipped her daily newspaper read, did all the household work herself and made sure she gave food and medicines to her husband on time. Both her wonderful daughters and grandchildren lived close by and visited her almost everyday yet, she preferred to live in her own house with her husband and later on her own after he passed away.
My sister and I started taking lessons from her after she had retired as a Government school teacher from SSLPS (Shankara Subbaiyer Lower Primary School) in Karamana. Incidentally, since the legendary singer K.S. Chithra studied in SSLPS, she happens to be our paatu maami's student too! And the humble, modest person that K.S.Chithra, paattu maami used to tell us that Chithra came to visit paattu maami and get her blessings quite often even after she became super famous.
She has taken music tuition to hundreds of children many of whom became kalathilakams and kalaprathibhaas in the Kerala State Youth Festivals. It goes without saying that I was not one of her top students ...but was definitely one of her favorites - we had a special bond. She herself would ask me to concentrate on my studies especially because we had school on Saturdays unlike her other students. She would say "nanna padichu jolikku poganam. Pinne paattu padichirintha kacheri nnu pannaattalum, aavishyam varumbo naalu kozhanthelkku tuition edukkalaame ". (You should study well and go to work ...If you learn music even if you do not do kacheris you can at least take music tuition to kids later if you need to stay home). Hope some day I can teach as she always insisted but have to learn and pursue more to gain the confidence and have to remember her cute advice "odathaedi konthai" :) (Do not increase the tempo while singing) . Actually my first music teacher had told I can never sing...so, whatever little music I have, I totally owe it to Bala mami's music and more importantly her Blessings.
I have never failed to visit her whenever I went to Trivandrum - it is really disheartening when I realize that I cannot see her when I go next time...
Here is a song tribute to her - my humble attempt at 'Shreeman narayana' which she had taught me when I had been to TVM five years back - she herself had learned just by listening from an 'M.S.S. amma program ' on Asianet TV.
